A MFD (Multi-Function Device) is a rendering device or office machine, which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in a single apparatus or system, so as to allow a smaller footprint in a home or small business setting, or to provide centralized document management/distribution/production in the context of, for example, a large-office setting. A typical MFD may provide a combination of some or all of the following capabilities: printer, scanner, photocopier, fax machine, e-mail capability, and so forth. Networked MFDs (Multi-Function Devices) generally interact with an assemblage of varying rendering devices, client computers, servers, and other components that are connected to and communicate over a computer network, which may be a wired and/or a wireless network.
In digital production rendering, multipage documents can be rendered (e.g., printed) and delivered via closed paper paths to a finishing device that does not permit convenient access to the rendered output until the rendering process is complete. During long print runs, however, it is often desirable to determine the quality of printing, ink color, paper substrate performance, color sweep test patches and other such aspects associated with the contemplated printing run. Hence, a sample page may be generated to permit a press operator to ensure that an appropriate content is being rendered and that the appearance of an output matches customer expectations.
The majority of prior art approaches to generating of such sample pages permit a user to select single duplicate sample pages associated with a current rendering job on a Digital Front End (DFE) component. Unfortunately, such prior art techniques can either lead to a printing sheet that does not adequately indicate the rendering performance with respect to images and/or text and which is unable to simulate other significant conditions prevailing during the actual printing run. Additionally, such methods are too cumbersome to program and the user needs to uniquely “know” the pages to sample for each job.
Based on the foregoing, it is believed that a need exists for an improved system and method capable of creating and rendering a customized sample job at a predefined frequency interval, as described in greater detail herein.